Opposition nervously awaits Conservatives’ election reform act

OTTAWA – Opposition MPs expressed anxiety on Monday as the Conservatives prepared to table a major reform to Canada’s electoral system without having consulted Elections Canada.

Pierre Poilievre, the minister of state for democratic reform, was to announce details of the bill – the Fair Elections Act – Tuesday morning on Parliament Hill.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Poilievre proclaimed that the bill will “give law enforcement sharper teeth, a longer reach and a freer hand,” but after question period, Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale said the Tories may be intent on “gutting” the arm’s-length agency that enforces election law.

“It’s ominous,” said Goodale. “Given their track record with Elections Canada, which has been confrontational right from day one, and then resentful, and now may have moved to vindictive, it’s significant that they have prepared this without any meaningful discussion with anyone at Elections Canada.”

In the House of Commons, Craig Scott, the NDP critic for democratic reform, asked Poilievre why “he failed to speak to the country’s top elections expert.”

Poilievre replied that he and Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand “had a terrific and a very long meeting, at which I listened carefully to all of his ideas.”

Elections Canada spokesman John Enright said later that Mayrand was not consulted on the bill.

“There was a meeting between the minister and the CEO last August, however the CEO was/has not been consulted on, nor informed of the bill’s contents,” Enright said.

Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who was CEO of Elections Canada before Mayrand, said in an interview Monday that the failure to consult makes him uneasy.

“That is difficult for me,” he said. “What it means is that they may have introduced things in the statute and then find out that the application of it is quite problematic as opposed to finding out in a consultative process.”

Conservative sources expect the government to make significant changes to the agency’s investigative office, which has caused repeated headaches for the party by prosecuting Conservatives for alleged Elections Act violations.

The official in charge of enforcing the Elections Act – the commissioner of Canada Elections – is now appointed by the chief electoral officer. The bill is expected to change that, providing for the commissioner to be appointed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, who reports to the justice minister.

Kingsley said the system is now designed to allow the commissioner to act independently of the government.

“I’m going to be looking for independence of the function, and that boils down, pretty well, to the nominating process,” he said. “Who appoints?”

Kingsley said he will also be watching to see that investigators will continue to have the ability to access money for investigations as necessary, as they do now, and how a new bill deals with the potential for the commissioner and the chief electoral officer to interpret the law differently.

Poilievre hasn’t released any details about the bill but he sent three tweets on Sunday, which he repeated in the House on Monday, including a promise to “ensure everyday citizens are in charge of democracy, by putting special interests on the sidelines and rule-breakers out of business.”

Since corporate and union donations are already banned, one left-leaning group, leadnow.ca, speculated that the government will move to control political advocacy by third-party groups.

“We just saw David Cameron’s government in the UK pass a ‘gagging law’ that will silence citizen groups when their voices are needed the most,” said Jamie Biggar, the group’s executive director. “We’re concerned that we’ll see similar anti-democratic restrictions in this bill.”

The Conservatives promised to give Elections Canada expanded powers bill during the height of the “robocalls” affair in March 2012, voting unanimously for an NDP motion that called for the government to bring in a new bill — within six months — to give more power to Elections Canada to prevent and prosecute election crimes.

The government missed that deadline, but in April 2013, Tim Uppal, then the minister of state for democratic reform, presented a bill to the Conservative caucus at a closed-door meeting. MPs raised objections to the proposed changes and it was shelved.

Elections Canada has complained that its investigations into fraudulent telephone calls in the 2011 election have been frustrated by the refusal of Conservative campaign workers to give evidence. The agency has requested the power to compel testimony.